Do not pass go. Do not catch thirty.

No prizes for guessing what happened today. Try the bit where you know who caught you know what. All the way out there, I actually think I'm going to catch it.

No-one's about, which is hardly surprising considering the conditions - Monday morning, howling north-easterly and snow.  

But I'm soon tucked away with two up and down the margins, a double expresso in one hand and a roll-up in the other. I can't take my eyes off the floats. When one goes, I nearly wish I'd brought a change of attire.

I pick up the rod, feel the line trickling off the reel, snap the bail arm shut and give it some welly.

Instead of the expected mammoth scrap, the rod bends briefly and a jack of little over a pound rolls on the top. Do not pass go. Do not catch thirty. I am tempted to press it into service for reconnaissance purposes, but it falls off the end as I go to chin it.

Doubt creeps in. Maybe it's moved. Maybe just to the next swim, so I try there. I try one or two other places it may have moved to. Ash rocks up, as I'm heading off for an early bath.

"Not caught it yet then," he chuckles.